The causes of world war one

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This is a map of Europe before 1914, as you can see the Austro-Hungarian Empire dominates what is now much of southern Germany and the Balkans. Germany is what we know presently as northern Germany and Poland. You may also have noticed that England, Scotland, Wales, and Eire made up the United Kingdom. Russia has a vast empire, a massive army (even though it is extremely poorly equipped, and trained). This was all changed by the First World War.

The causes of world war one

There are many reasons as to why the First World War actually took place, hardly any of them seem of great consequence when examined individually, however when examined together they do seem fairly major, but in my opinion don’t merit a world war.

Germany and France had a great rivalry after the wars of 1871 in which France lost the colonies of Alsange and Coraing to Prussia. France and it’s people bitterly wand to have their revenge over Germany.

Great Britain and Germany were also engaged in a hostile race to have the larger navy. This was heightened when Britain released a fleet of dreadnaughts which were the most lethal ships of warfare that the world had ever seen.

The five major powers

Great Britain

At the start of the twentieth century Great Britain had the richest and largest empire in the world. Britain had the most trade and the largest navy on the planet. This had all happened under the leadership of queen Victoria (1837-1901).

Germany

Less than 50 years before the start of world war one Germany was not in existence, it was split up into smaller states. One of these states (Prussia), was larger then the rest, and wanted to unite with the other states to gain more power. This felt threatening to France and Austria, so they declare war on Prussia, they lost and the German empire was formed.

Austria-Hungary

This was two merged nations, Austria and Hungary. This contained many different nationalities, which all wanted to be free of the leadership, and govern themselves. The empire was falling apart.

Russia

In 1900 Russia was the largest country in the world, but she was also one of the poorest. The Russian population was massive, but most of their number lived in the western segment of the country, hardly anybody lived in the sub-zero climate of Siberia. Russia was rich in minerals, such as: gold, oil, coal, and iron ore etc. the problem was that they lacked the technology to extract and process them. They were a population that were divided by culture and population barriers (much like the Austro-Hungarians).

France

France had the ability to be a the most major power in the world, at the turn of the century. This was because the land was fertile and the population hard working. France was a republic; this was very rare for a nation in that period of history. One of the main weaknesses of France was that much of it’s national pride had been damaged in the war against Prussia in 1871.

The beginning of trench warfare

Trench warfare started as a direct result of the failure of the much lamented schliefen plan. After the Battle of the Marne in September 1914, the Germans were forced to retreat. They had failed in their objective to compel France into an early surrender. However, rather than give up the territory which they already held, the Germans dug in to protect themselves from the guns of the advancing Allies. The Allies couldn't break the German trench lines and so followed the German example. In a short while, the trench lines spread from the North Sea to Switzerland. This stalemate lasted for 4 years and the repercussions lasted for years and years afterwards. This was a war that reshaped the country and the whole world forever.

Life in the trenches

Life in the trenches was awful. It was described by one soldier as being, “the most desolate, disease-ridden place that I have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on!” this sums up life in the trenches very well, as they were simply like a hell on earth. There were several things that made the trenches even worse than they already were. One of these vermin was the infamous louse. Here is an account of one soldier, Henry Gregory of 119th machine gun company, talking about his first day in the trenches.

When we arrived in the trenches we got a shock when the other soldiers in the hut took their shirts off after tea. They were catching lice. We had never seen a louse before, but they were here in droves. The men were killing them between their nails. When they saw us looking at this performance with astonishment, one of the men remarked, 'You will soon be as lousy as we are chum!' They spent the better part of an hour in killing lice and scratching themselves. We soon found out that this took the better part of an hour daily. Each day brought a new batch; as fast as you killed them, others took their place.”

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Another of these vermin was the rats, these carried with them countless diseases and their foul smell. They made terrible nuisance of themselves by stealing much of what little food there was. Another thing that caused great resentment towards the rats was that the soldiers couldn’t help thinking that they lived on their dead friend’s bodies; this as you can probably well imagine was a horrendous experience.

There was a better side to being in the trenches and this was the brother hood of war. You would become incredibly close to your comrades, which sometimes made life more ...

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**** 4 STARS Well researched, well structured and concisely written. This would be an excellent revision resource or could be used as a framework for an essay. Easy to read with clear subheadings for different facets of WW1.